Why Star Wars: The Old Republic Failed

GR writes: "I was one of many who invested in the Collector’s Edition and thought it would be the long-awaited game that would help me shelve World of Warcraft for more than just a few months. After playing for about a week it started to sink in that the game had some design flaws, some of which were polarizing. Admittedly no game is perfect, but for a game that had in the neighborhood of 200 million dollars invested in it I expected more, and apparently I wasn't alone. After fewer than eight months it has already been confirmed as a free-to-play title, making it one of the quickest MMOs in history to hang its subscription hat. It almost doesn’t even make sense… or does it?"

[Abriael]

Failed? The game looks pretty alive to me. Tabula Rasa "failed". SWTOR is still going and will for years.

Another bandwagony article with absolutely no clue.

[JonnyBigBoss]

Fail-ure

Nonperformance of something due, required, or expected: a failure to do what one has promised; a failure to appear.

If you think a $200 million game made by BioWare—who said the game will never go free-to-play before launch-going free-to-play within eight months isn't failure, I have no idea what is.

Sure, it sold a lot of units, but it hasn't even made back half of its investment.

You can call it bandwagony all you want, but don't say I have no clue. I've lived and breathed MMOs for more than a decade. I can tell you absolutely everything you could ever want to know about SWTOR because I followed the game for three years before release. Hell, I bought the Collector's Edition.

Your problem is you took the word failure way too personally. Would it make you happier if the title were Why Star Wars: The Old Republic was successful? That wouldn't even make sense.

[Abriael]

If I had a penny for every person that "lived and breathed" MMOs for "more than a decade" and has absolutely no clue I meet, I'd be on a yacht anchored in front of a tropical island. I meet quite a few every day by using the group finder on multiple MMOs.

You actually don't have the slightest solid data to assess how much it "made back" of the investment, nor how much it'll make in the future. As a matter of fact, EA was clear in sating that 500k subs would be enough to break even, and guess what? If you had a clue and followed their latest earnings conference call, you'd know that they're still way above that mark.

Only someone without a single clue would use a final word as "failure" about an enterprise that isn't even near the end of its lifetime, with a lot of potential for the future.

Someone without a single clue, or a hater that can't express a concept without the use of hyperbole. That may be your problem.

[rdgneoz3]

@Abriael You know they're saying they only need 500k subscribers now, but before they were saying they needed 1 mill to break even ( http://n4g.com/news/493932/... ). And at the moment, some sites are suggesting they're dropping below that 1 mill mark ( http://www.computerandvideo... ), so them saying 500k to look good after having said 1 mill before might not be too far off.

It may not be a complete and utter disaster, but its a far cry from being a huge financial success they were hoping it would be. What word would you use to describe a project that cost 200 million to make and then announces its going free to play within 8 months?

[Mainsqueeze]

Ahh its a sad day when one bubble trolls are also journalists trying to be taken seriously. Look i stopped playing SWTOR along time ago because it has some major flaws, but it hasn't failed, not by a long shot. I agree with everything Abriael said. Didn't click the link either btw, just trying to get hits.

[alexcosborn]

Failed is an awfully strong word my friend. I'm very interested to see how the move to F2P will impact its future.

[solar]

The game lacked end game content. After you did KP or Soa hardmodes you stood around for a week to do it again.

[dbjj12088]

It failed. That's for sure.

[alexcosborn]

It's a real shame too. BioWare's approach to story in an MMO was pretty cool.

But if you don't have enough of a compelling end game to keep players coming back, they obviously won't be sticking around.

[CJQNSNYC]

Why do people continually state their opinions as though they were facts? Failure would mean the game no longer exists and did not turn a profit. Whatever your feelings about the game may be, the game is hardly a failure. Has not met expectations as of yet is more accurate, but then again, it still has a future ahead of it.

[aliengmr]

Not if they failed to do what they set out to do. You don't spend $200 to $500 million to create an average MMO. You spend that much to compete directly with WoW. In that sense it was a failure.

The game itself has not failed as a game, but it failed as an investment. It failed to become EA's WoW, which was one of the reasons it was created.

The goal was never to make a new Star Wars MMO. That could have been done at a fraction of the price. The goal was either to dethrone or compete directly with WoW. This is obvious in its design and going with subs from the start.

SWTOR may be a great game, but it isn't the game EA/BioWare needed. They were the failure not the game.

[Th3 Chr0nic]

The game is pretty alive and doing well. Play it and see instead of trolling without having experienced it in the last month

[MacDonagh]

Okay. They are laying off SWTOR staff. The estimates of the development budget for the MMO is between $200-$300 million with marketing boosting it to up to $500 million. There is about a million subscribers, not counting all the various dead accounts that haven't been used. No matter how many people switch over to the Free2play model; there is no way that they will break even.

Yeah. It's not even a failure but an absolute catastrophe for EA. To deny this is to deny reality.

[Darrius Cole]

Why did Star Wars: The Old Republic fail?....Because there is no "Knights of" in it.

These companies refuse to give us the game we want and then wonder why they perform below expectations. When in truth your expectations were too high. People want what they tell you they want, not what you tell them they want.

Edit:

4th Paragraph from the top:...

"Given that a lot of people got their money's worth from enjoying the story but weren't interested in playing past the first free month, SWTOR would have made a much better single-player title."

I know. That's the whole point. We all knew. Everybody but the people making the game knew.

[Captain Qwark 9]

agreed. nobody wanted another star wars mmo, if they did galaxies would still be here. people wanted bioware to make a sequel to one of last gens best rpgs. we wanted a singleplayer star wars knights game. that simple. sometimes multiplayer is not the way to go, this is one of those cases.

i can almost guarantee if they made a knights sequel it would have cost 4-5 less and made much more profit than the old republic will ever return

[Double_O_Revan]

Agreed. I have wanted nothing more then KOTOR 3 ever since I finished playing the 2nd one. It broke my heart when they announced it would be an MMO, because I knew not only would it not be the amazing single player game of the previous 2, but I also knew that I would never touch an MMO game.

I have never been a big fan of the multiplayer portion in games, but I have No interest in playing a game to which I am online and having to find people to play with every time or even paying $15 per month for a game that I have already shelled out $60 just to buy in the first place.

[Stansolo]

That's the best comment on here that makes sence. I totally agree, well said. Bubble vote for you.

[Qrphe]

I regret SO MUCH having bought this game. Some of my friends convinced me into buying it and playing it with them for release (we love Star Wars anyway).

Then this (a walking simulator btw) game sucked and no one wanted to play it anymore (dark Jedi and Sith on the light side? Lolwat). I'll probably go back and try it out now that it's pay-to-win but I'm not giving one more penny to Tortonic unless their game really impresses me.

[aliengmr]

While not the biggest reason, not having a space sim certainly hasn't helped it.

The game itself hasn't failed the idea failed. It tried too hard to compete on WoW's turf. Same thing happened to SWG, WoW was huge and LA wanted a piece, thus the NGE. Once LA knew they weren't going to achieve that, they gave up, and SWG got a little better in the end. EA tried to use the WoW recipe and add BioWare, the Star Wars franchise, and a huge budget in the hopes they would at least compete with WoW. That hasn't worked, so they will try F2P.

Look at what EA is like. They are more interested in competing than being unique. SWTOR may live on, and may actually benefit if the focus on it shifts to something else and its allowed to create its own identity. Assuming EA doesn't just pull the plug.

IMO SWTOR should have tried to use the good qualities of SWG. SWG was far from perfect, but it had player housing, an complex crafting system, and space. One could ignore combat entirely if they chose to or just focus on piloting. It was never going to dethrone WoW but it didn't need to.

[Saryk]

SWTOR hasn't fail anything. I didn't think that a monthly sub was worth it, but a failure , no. The only thing they need to do is like Guild Wars, sell the game, then have item shops and once a year a paid content expansion.

[Th3 Chr0nic]

there are still thousands of players online at any moment. there is new content being added constanbtly. I dont care how much money they made the game is better than all the trolls make it out to be.

maybe if there wasnt a smear campaign of basement geeks that have never played it we wouldnt have this problem.

the launch wasnt as PERFECT as the basement dwellers wanted. so it gets blackballed and no one will give it a second chance afterwards even tho it has gotten way way better